The Modern Prometheus modern design twist on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Page 32

The Modern Prometheus

We ascended into my room, and the servant presently
brought breakfast; but I was unable to contain myself. It was not
joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of
sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain
for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the chairs,
clapped my hands, and laughed aloud. Clerval at first attributed
my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed
me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he
could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, “heartless laughter
frightened and astonished him.
‘My dear Victor,’ cried he, “what, for God’s sake, is the
matter? Do not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What is the
cause of all this?”
“Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my
eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room;
“he can tell. Oh, save me! Save me!” I imagined that the monster
seized me; I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.
Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting,
which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to
bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless
and did not recover my senses for a long, long time.
This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined
me for several months. During all that time Henry was my only
nurse. I afterwards learned that, knowing my father’s advanced
age and unfitness for so long a journey, and how wretched my
sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by
concealing the extent of my disorder. He knew that I could not
have a more kind and attentive nurse than himself; and, firm in
the hope he felt of my recovery, he did not doubt that, instead
of doing harm, he performed the kindest action that he could
towards them.
But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded
and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to
life. The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence

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